'u'llah should rank not only among the stirring
occurrences of this Age of Transition, but as some of the most startling
and significant events of contemporary history.

Both Sunni and _Sh_i'ih Islam had, through the convulsions that had seized
them, contributed to the acceleration of the disruptive process to which I
have previously referred--a process which, by its very nature, is to pave
the way for that complete reorganization and unification which the world,
in every aspect of its life, must achieve. What of Christianity and of the
denominations with which it stands identified? Can it be said that this
process of deterioration that has attacked the fabric of the Religion of
Muhammad has failed to exert its baneful influence on the institutions
associated with the Faith of Jesus Christ? Have these institutions already
experienced the impact of these menacing forces? Are their foundations so
secure and their vitality so great as to enable them to resist this
onslaught? Will they, as the confusion of a chaotic world spreads and
deepens, fall in turn a prey to their violence? Have the more orthodox
among them already arisen, and, if not, will they arise, to repel the
onset of a Cause which, having pulled down the barriers of Muslim
orthodoxy, is now advancing into the heart of Christendom, in both the
European and American continents? Would such a resistance sow the seeds of
further dissension and confusion, and consequently serve indirectly to
hasten the advent of the promised Day?

To these queries we can but partly answer. Time alone can reveal the
nature of the role which the institutions directly associated with the
Christian Faith are destined to assume in this, the Formative Period of
the Baha'i Era, this dark age of transition through which humanity as a
whole is passing. Such events as have already transpired, however, are of
such a nature as can indicate the direction in which these institutions
are moving. We can, in some degree, appraise the probable effect which the
forces operating both within the Baha'i Faith and outside it will exert
upon them.

That the forces of irreligion, of a purely materialistic philosophy, of
unconcealed paganism have been unloosed, are now spreading, and, by
consolidating themselves, are beginning to invade some of the most
powerful Christian institutions of the western world, no unbiased observer
can fail to admit. That these institutions are becoming increasingly
restive, th